Vodafone Chief Answers HMRC Call

Vodafone Chief Information Officer to join the Revenue

Mark Dearnley, current Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Vodafone and considered to be one of the U.K’s leading I.T supremo’s is to join HMRC as their new Chief Digital and Information Officer.

Mr Dearnley will receive a yearly salary of £180K in return for overseeing an annual £500 million I.T operation that serves 45 million individuals, 4.8 million businesses and 65,000 HMRC employees.

He will be responsible for implementing HMRC’s £200 million digitisation programme and accelerating the planned delivery of online services for all taxpayers. He will also lead HMRC’s physical, personnel and information security.

Since his appointment as CIO at Vodafone UK in 2010 Dearnley has had responsibility for I.T supporting 19 million customers, with his primary focus on using I.T to improve the customer experience. He led a programme to overhaul Vodafone’s business-critical information systems and was named Oracle Global Business Unit CIO of the Year in 2012 for this achievement. He also restructured Vodafone’s I.T operating model and introduced Cloud-based technologies into the mobile operator.

Over the last decade Dearnley has worked internationally in the telecoms industry.

Upon landing his new position as a senior civil servant Mr Dearnley said, “I have spent my entire career in the private sector, mostly in customer-facing businesses. But no private business in the UK can match the customer base, scale or complexity of HMRC, which makes this role irresistible. I am thrilled to have been appointed and can’t wait to get started.”

Accolades were paid to HMRC’s marquee signing by David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, who said, “It is an indication of the scale and seriousness of the Government’s digital ambition that one of the UK’s most experienced CIOs is leaving the private sector to take on this major role. Mark Dearnley’s appointment to HMRC is evidence that Government has the cutting-edge challenges that can attract the very best leaders in IT to public service” and by Lin Homer, Chief Executive of HMRC who added, “Mark is an exceptionally experienced CIO, with strong leadership and change management skills as well as an accomplished technical background across a spectrum of IT disciplines. HMRC has already embarked on an ambitious programme of digitisation to provide taxpayers with modern online services and Mark is the right person to deliver that for the UK.”

Welcome to the dark side Mark!!